1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector, and more particularly to a backplane connector that has guiding elements and facilitates insertion of a printed circuit board (PCB) expansion card therein and prevents the PCB expansion card from inadvertent disengagement from the backplane connector.
2. Description of Related Art
Servers such as blade servers and rack mount servers have a PCB mounted with backplane connectors for high speed and stable signal transmission thus to avoid using cable connectors that have deformation, disorder and durable problems.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,229,319 discloses a backplane connector on a PCB and having a housing and multiple disk shaped contact modules. The housing has an insertion slot and multiple spaces. The insertion slot may receive an accessory card. The contact modules are mounted respectively in the spaces and are arranged abreast in a row. Each contact module has an insulating member and a pair of electrical contacts. The electrical contacts may be a differential signaling pair, is mounted on the insulating member by inserting molding processes and provides electrical connection.
However, the aforementioned backplane connector has following disadvantages.
1. When a PCB expansion card is inserted in and connected to the backplane connector, the electrical contacts of the contact modules cannot smoothly guide an insertion portion of the PCB expansion card into the backplane connector. Furthermore, the PCB expansion card mounted completely in the backplane connector easily slips and separates from the backplane connector to causes signal transmission failure.
2. Each contact module has its individual tolerance. When all the contact modules are arranged abreast together, a total tolerance thereof always exceeds the reasonable expectation, which causes fabrication failure of the backplane connector and the deformation, loosening and disassembly of the contact modules. Therefore, the durability and production rate of the backplane connector are decreased.
3. The housing is hollow and implemented without any crossbeam structures so is structurally weak and cannot protect the contact modules therein, which further makes the signal transmission of the backplane connector unstable.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a backplane connector with guiding elements to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.